


Ice

by twistedchick



Category: Sports Night, due South
Genre: Hockey, M/M, NY is for lovers, Sports Club, exploring the Northwest Territories
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:17:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: Dan finds love in an unexpected place.





	Ice

"You going to Anthony's tonight, Dan?" Casey shrugged his way out of the jacket he wore on camera. Usually the jackets chosen for him fitted perfectly, but something stuck out from the back of the collar this time, making his neck itch. He turned the jacket in his hands, but couldn't see what it was.

"Not tonight."

"Not in the mood?"

Dan shrugged. "I just feel like walking for a while, okay? Maybe I'll go over to the Garden, see how the new Flyers recruits are shaping up."

"I thought Sally had someone covering that for West Coast Update."

Dan handed his jacket off to Alison, who accepted it and then took Casey's as well and went backstage to wardrobe. "Does that mean I can't go see the hockey game?"

Casey put his hands up. "By no means. Feel free." They were on their way back to their office. "I didn't know you liked hockey that much."

"I used to play a little, when I was a kid. It was the hockey equivalent of sandlot baseball." Dan took his jacket off the coat tree and slung it over his shoulder.

"Well, have fun." Casey smiled at him. "Hit a homer, dude."

Dan glanced back over his shoulder at Casey. "You too. Keep Dana from putting 'Boogie Shoes' on the jukebox."

Casey snorted. "Like that's possible."

On his way out, Dan passed Natalie cooing over Jeremy's latest desk toy, a wind-up plastic gorilla that turned somersaults on top of his desk. He caught it as it spiraled off into his hand and tossed it back to Natalie. "See you Monday." She nodded, already intent on something else.

The cool air on the street made Dan feel more awake than he had for hours. It had been a rough week, with too many technical problems during broadcasts, too much interference from J.J. and higher-ups who juggled numbers but had no clue how to edit or produce a sportscast. Casey had been edgy and bitter -- something to do with his ex-wife's plans for Charlie's next school vacation -- and Dana had reacted to Casey's attitude by growing a brittle shield on her emotions. Between them, they'd acquired enough hardshell coating to shield a couple of Batmobiles, and it left Dan feeling battered and weary from it all.

The game was just finishing, the puck slapping into the home team's goal at speed off a Flyer's stick. Dan stepped into the announcer's booth briefly to say hello, joked for a few moments, but left as soon as he could. He hadn't gone there to talk shop, but to watch men gliding on ice as if they had invisible wings.

Too late. The players had gone to the locker rooms, and soon the Zamboni would slick another coating on the scarred arena ice. Another layer, like the chill in Dana's eyes when Casey sniped at her after meetings. If Isaac had been there, he'd have called both of them into his office, one by one, and sorted it out, but Isaac wasn't well enough even yet for full-time Casey-wrangling or Dana-handling, and Dan knew better than to ask him.

So he sat, in one of the red seats down near the ice, listening to the Garden's air system pump out the deoxygenated air from the game and replace it with something from outdoors, like giant lungs breathing around him. He closed his eyes and let himself relax in the quiet, listening to the distant voices of men in locker rooms, the quiet clatter of the cleaning crew in the hall outside the arena, and the clank of doors opening and closing.

And the sickle sweep of steel blades cutting ice.

Dan opened his eyes. Someone was out there, skating, pumping long, muscled legs through laps around the rink, crossing his legs on the corners as easily as if he'd done it every day of his life, turning from forward to backward without a thought, swerving back again.

Nobody he knew.

Dan felt a wrinkle form between his eyebrows. He liked hockey. He knew the players on all the National Hockey League teams by sight, and most of the foreign ones as well. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and stared at the skates. As the skater swept past him, arms working this time to pick up speed on the corners, he got a good look at the skates. Long straight blades with that tubular support to keep them steady under powerful leg thrusts, not precision blades with a gentle arc and jagged toe picks.

Hockey skates. Well-used, well-worn hockey skates with scarred boots that had seen better decades. The sound they made on the ice reminded Dan of the first time he'd seen 'Star Wars' and heard the metallic scream of tie fighters swooping over the Death Star. If these skates went any faster, it would sound just like that.

Dan sat up. The movement apparently startled the man on the ice, for he swerved backward, turning to cast a sharp glance at Dan, before executing a rapid figure-eight around the goals and stopping on the far side of the ice to exit through a utility door. He stepped down onto the rubber floor covering, walked behind the stands and disappeared from sight. By the time Dan could push himself out of the seat and hurry to follow him, the man was gone. The Zamboni was refinishing the ice under the control of a large-bellied man who could not have skated with the speed Dan had observed if he'd been strapped to a jet engine.

It wasn't that late yet, not in New York on a Friday night. Dan decided to stop at a coffee bar on the way back to his apartment, pick up the early edition of the Saturday paper and see what might be going on in the world. He'd been there at that hour before; it wasn't crowded. He'd be able to get a seat at a table in the back and read as much of the paper as he wanted until he felt sleepy enough to go home and fall into bed.

The after-hours crowd was still there, but as he expected the corner table was free. He bought Saturday editions of the Times and the Post -- the Daily News could wait until he was coherent enough to catch all the jokes -- ordered a double decaf latte with extra cinnamon, and carried it to the back. He was part way through the Post's comics when he glanced up and saw the tall man with the gray brush cut who stood at the coffee pickup station, leaning against the bar as if he'd spent his life leaning against railings that were just a little more than waist high.

The man's eyes flicked toward him over cheekbones an architect would have loved to steal, though the nose between those eyes had seen its share of contact with hard surfaces. He lifted an eyebrow in inquiry. Dan nodded; the crowd had thickened since the late theatre crowd arrived, and his table was the only one with an empty seat.

"Thanks," the man said. "Didn't feel like standing up to drink it."

"I can understand that." Dan watched him curiously. "Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar."

Something like panic, and five more emotions after that, crossed the man's face in a flash. "My name's Mark. What's yours?"

"Dan. Dan Rydell." Dan put out a hand to shake. The newcomer's hand carried old calluses on the palm and fingers, and his grip felt strong through the brief contact.

"Dan Rydell. Oh, shit." All at once Mark picked up his coffee and started to push himself to his feet. "I'm sorry."

"Wait a minute. Did I say something wrong?"

A rueful smile twisted Mark's lips. "No. You're fine. Thanks anyway."

Dan put out a hand that didn't quite touch Mark, and the man stopped. "Look, I'm not at work right now. This is just coffee. If I dissed your favorite team, I'll apologize. But I really don't want you to feel you have to leave because of what I do for a living."

Mark stood for what felt like a long moment, thinking, looking at the table. When his eyes rose to meet Dan's, he nodded. "Good point. I'm sorry." He sat down again.

"Nothing to be sorry about." Dan wanted to ask, again, who Mark was or what he did, but it seemed that was a sore spot so he didn't. "You want some of this?" He gestured toward the papers.

"No, thanks. It's been too long a week for me to have to think at the end of it."

"I hear that." Dan raised his coffee cup and they solemnly clinked them together. The sound reminded him of what he'd heard, earlier, and he put the cup down so quickly it nearly clattered. "Were ... were you the one I saw on the ice at the Garden after the game?"

Mark ducked his head in a nod. The edges of his brush cut seemed to flicker like brushed silver. "I know the Zamboni operator; he lets me skate before he refinishes the rink. Do you skate?"

Dan shrugged. "A little. I was a speed skater in college for a while, but that was years ago."

"You've got the look of it, but you've lost weight." Mark's eyes crinkled at the corners as he leaned back in his chair.

"Living in Texas for a few years will do that to you."

"Not a lot of good ice down there."

"No. You had some pretty good speed there for a while."

"I try to keep in shape." It was almost a verbal shrug, and Dan wanted to take notes so he could use that tone on Casey if he needed it. Maybe it would work better on Dana.

"You don't like the city rinks? Central Park?"

"Too public. Too many kids going in circles." Mark's shoulders rolled under his sweater.

Dan could almost see the depth of the muscular contours through the warm knit fabric, and he felt a tingle down the back of his neck. He wanted to run his fingertips over those contours, and up the side of that sculptured column of a neck, and ... he shifted in his seat, pulling his sliding jacket higher behind his own shoulders.

The silence stretched between them, not uncomfortably.

Mark moved first, leaning forward to rest long forearms on the table between them. "Look. I'd feel more comfortable if you could promise me you're not going to write about me. I don't want to be a story, okay?" His grayish eyes, almost as gray as his salt-and-pepper hair, seemed to plead warily.

Dan nodded slowly. "I promise you. You're not my story. Believe me, I don't need another story right now, not with the threat of a baseball strike and the free-agent negotiations and the Olympic trials coming up." He let himself smile. "You want it in writing?"

"I'll take your word for it. I've heard you're honest."

"Thanks."

"I'm Mark Smithbauer."

Dan felt as if a flying rubber puck had smacked him right between the eyes. Of course this was Mark Smithbauer. He couldn't be anyone else, not with those flying legs and that graceful sweep of steel blades as he turned corners on ice -- only Mark, who had been banned from professional hockey for life for gambling, who could only skate on a hockey rink if nobody saw him do it.

The version Dan had heard, the one that hadn't made the news, was that Mark's best friend from childhood had confronted him and made him admit what he was doing. It must have taken a lot of strength for a friend to do that, knowing what it would do to his career. That had been five years ago, after which Mark had disappeared from the media radar.

"It's good to meet you," Dan said, meaning it honestly. "I admired your game."

"Thanks." Mark seemed to feel comfortable with that. "I miss it, sometimes."

That had to be the understatement of the millennium. Dan knew all the stories about Mark, of how he'd been given his first hockey stick for Christmas when he was ten months old, and how his father had put him in skates before he was three to get him out on the ice.

"What are you doing now, or should I not ask?" Dan felt a little cautious about asking anything, at this point.

"I'm an assistant manager at a health club in the Village." Mark shrugged. "It keeps me in shape, it's a living. You do what you have to do, eh?"

"Yes." The latte was growing cool as Dan drank it. He watched Mark sip from his own cup as if he wished it were a beer, but knew better. "You want to go somewhere? This place is getting a bit noisy for conversation."

"Sure." Mark set his cup on the table. "I don't live too far from here, but it's a dump."

"This is the city. Broom closets in New York cost more than estates in the Rockies." Dan's breath seemed to be catching in the back of his throat. "I don't care."

"Let's go."

Mark's place wasn't that bad. It was tiny, like any apartment in the city, but it had big windows and overlooked a small, tree-studded park, so it felt larger even at night. The bed took up nearly half of one end of the room, and when Mark saw Dan notice this, a light blush washed over his face. "Had to get a good-sized bed; I'm too tall for the ordinary length of mattress."

Dan caught his eye. "I like tall."

He didn't have to say anything else, not that he could have with Mark kissing him. And within a very few minutes he knew the bed was exactly the right size for everything.  
***

"You look relaxed, Dan. Good weekend?" It was Dana, in the elevator, first thing on Monday.

Dan let himself smile, just enough. "I'd say so."

Dana shook her head, her bangs bouncing a little on her forehead. "What, still doing that New York Renaissance thing?"

"You went to see 'The Lion King'."

"Yes, I did. Have you been to see 'The Lion King' yet, Danny?"

"Actually, yes. I went to yesterday's matinee." He watched her eyebrows arch expectantly. "It was wonderful."

"Yes! Just as I said. I'm glad you agree with me on the importance of being exposed to cultural events in the city."

"I couldn't agree more," Dan murmured, privately reserving the right to define 'cultural events' as broadly as possible, so that it included not only the matinee itself but the dinner in Restaurant Row that followed, and the personal exertions that occurred after that.

"Danny went to see 'The Lion King'," she told Casey as she walked in.

"Really?"

"Yes, Casey. Really."

"Incredible. And you survived to tell us about it."

"Shut up, Casey, at least until the noon meeting." Dana smiled at Casey. "Just for once."

"I hear and obey, o great leader." Casey bowed mockingly before her. She smacked him with her fuzzy scarf and went off down the hall to her office. "Three White Sox players are supposed to sign contracts today."

"With the Sox?" Her voice drifted back toward them.

"Apparently. Ah, the age of free-agentry is so unpredictable."

"Write it, Casey."

"So." Casey sat down behind his desk. "You think you're going to make a habit of going to shows now?"

"I've always gone to shows, Case."

"You have?"

"Sure. In the last few months I've seen 'The Scarlet Pimpernel', 'Moon Over Buffalo', 'Annie Get Your Gun', with Bernadette Peters, and 'Riverdance'."

"You, Dan Rydell, went to see 'Riverdance'?"

"At Radio City. Good show. Great music. Oh, and good dancing, too."

Casey's eyes narrowed. "When?"

"When what?"

"When have you had time to see all these shows?"

Dan shrugged. "Sometimes I went when you were visiting Charlie. Sometimes I met friends -- I do have friends in this city besides the people I work with -- and went with them. If you'd like to go, I can certainly put you on the list."

"Thanks but no. I don't think I need to be on the list."

"Oh?"

"I mean, how exclusive is this list? Is it everyone you know? Who's on it?"

Dan shook his head. "You're not serious. I'm not taking you seriously, Case. You don't really want to go see 'The Lion King', not even with Charlie. You just want to bust my chops about this, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess," Casey admitted. "But you do look like you had a good weekend."'

"That I did."  
***

Sometimes they went walking in Central Park, late at night, keeping to the lighted paths, just to find a place where Mark could walk and feel less confined by the tall buildings and the noise.

"I grew up in the Territories. Lots of wide open spaces." He was walking fast, with Dan pacing him, but shooting glances at the tall trees Frederick Law Olmstead had planted as if he expected them to pull up their roots and walk.

"Not a lot of trees? I thought there were big trees there in the mountains." Dan made a circle with his arms. "Big trees."

The corner of Mark's mouth swerved upward. "Play basketball much?"

Dan shrugged. "It's better than soccer."

"Yeah. What soccer needs is a smaller ball, and sticks."

"And skates?"

"Wouldn't hurt." They reached the clearing and started around the lake. "No, this was above the mountains, at least some of the time. Way up near the Arctic Circle. It's flat, like this, but if there are trees they only get as tall as I am, or a little more."

Dan whistled softly. "That must be really something."

"You know, I've lived in cities for years, more or less, with the team, but I never thought of it as living there. I was just there for the work, and when I thought of home it was up north. Now," Mark paused, took a breath, "I have to live here, and I feel so ... so ... "

"Claustrophobic?"

"Sort of. Is there such a thing as tree claustrophobia?"

"Could be. I could find out, if you really wanted to know."

Mark dismissed this with a gentle head shake. "Don't bother. They'd probably make me climb sequoias for treatment or something, and I hate heights more than I do enclosures."

"I thought you were good at heights," Dan offered. "I mean, you work on the twenty-sixth floor."

"In a solid building. I'm not good at heights over air. Put a horse, or a mountain, under me and I'm fine." They reached a signpost pointing to Strawberry Fields. "You want to get some coffee?"

"Sure. There's a really nice place just outside the park."

"On the way back to your place or mine?"

"I thought you were nervous about coming to my place."

"Not any more." Mark's eyes glowed in the light from the street. "I don't think you keep spare camera crews in your closets now."

Dan laughed. "No, they're in the studio, making videos when they're on break."

"You're kidding."

"Really. Elliott told Casey they're putting together a 'Sports Night Greatest Hits' video for Isaac's birthday. Moments from the show set to music. I don't know whether to feel flattered or embarrassed."

"Oh, yeah." Mark's hand rubbed Dan's shoulder; he could feel the warmth through his heavy coat. "Let's go for that coffee, you video star, you."  
***

About a month went by.

Isaac's health was steadily improving; he was in the office a few hours a day, most days, taking it easy but making it clear to J.J. that he was still in charge.

Dana and her fiance had finally taken the plunge and split up, and Casey was biding his time until he could ask her out. When Dan went to Anthony's after the show, he felt as if he was spending too much time watching Casey watch Dana. He cut back on his time in Anthony's, and when Natalie asked him where he was going instead, he told her he'd joined a health club.

She complimented him on his increased fitness and good looks, and he thanked her. Jeremy asked which club it was, and Dan hedged by giving its general location instead of its name, which worked; it wasn't anywhere near where Jeremy or Natalie lived, so Jeremy wasn't interested any more.  
***

"Anything else on the ticket for today?" Dana asked. "Going once, going twice --"

"How about a 'where are they now' feature on former sports figures?" Jeremy asked.

Kim snorted. "Like we don't do that to death already."

"No, really." Jeremy sounded earnest.

Dan's ears pricked up, and he made an effort not to move in his chair.

"Who wants to hear about Pete Rose again? Not me, for one," Dana muttered. "If they're that former, we don't need 'em except as filler."

"New girdle, Dana?" Casey asked sweetly.

"Shut up, Casey."

"I'm not talking about baseball. We're overloaded on baseball right now --"

"Impossible," Dan put in.

"-- I'm talking about hockey."

"So? Who's interested?" Dana snapped a hot blue glance at Casey.

"I am," Elliott said.

"Who cares?" Kim yawned.

"Jeremy, if you're going to tell me that the Edmonton Oilers are planning a fantasy hockey camp, I might be interested. An old geezer skidding on the ice isn't going to do it," Dana said.

"How about Mark Smithbauer?"

Dan's eyes moved from the notebook in front of him to the pen he'd been slowly tapping on it. He glanced at his watch: 12:45 p.m. This is the way the world will end, not with a bang but a whimper.

The hell it will.

He straightened in his seat, waiting for the reaction from Dana.

"Smithbauer. Smithbauer. Smith ... right. The guy with the gambling problem. What have you got that's new?"

"He's in town. Maybe we could get him on the show for a couple of minutes to talk about what he thinks of the new blood in the game."

"And maybe not." Dan felt as if his voice was echoing off the glass walls.

"Excuse me?" Dana's eyes were wide. Casey's eyes were wider.

"The man's not in sports any more. It's been five years since he left the game, and he's been living as a private citizen. He hasn't been talking with Jimmy Breslin about the prospects, or doing anything except minding his own business and getting on with his life. I think we should respect his privacy."

Jeremy, apparently taken aback, blinked several times, behind his glasses. He turned toward Dana, waiting.

Dana tilted her head sideways and regarded Dan with a critical, assessing look he'd always thought she reserved for the sales at Saks Jandel. "Much though I hate to admit it, I think that unless you've got more than that, Jeremy, we'll pass on this one. We're pretty tight today, anyway, and it's not timely news."

"But --" Jeremy was nothing if not persistent.

"When it's timely, we'll do it. We have a lot of features on hold already. It'll wait." Dana swerved in her chair and rose to her feet. "See you at four, guys."

Casey stayed in his seat, next to Dan, staring at him as if he wasn't sure who he was looking at. "What was that all about?"

"Taking the high road. You should be familiar with that concept."

"Right. What's it really about?"

Dan put the pen down before he could give in to the urge to throw it. "I think someone who has been out of the spotlight for that long should be allowed to get on with his life if he wants to."

"Do you know that's what he wants, or are you skating on principle here?"

"I'm skating, so to speak, on fact. I've spoken to him."

"You've spoken to Mark Smithbauer? Where?"

"In a coffee bar on the south side, a couple of months ago. He told me he didn't want to be a news story, and I told him I wouldn't write one."

"You had no right to do that, Danny."

"Casey, let it go. Mark doesn't want to be reminded about this. He's paid off his gambling debts -- that was news four and a half years ago, not now. He's not involved with professional hockey any more. He's respecting the ban. I don't think you or I have any right to interfere in his life like that."

"You mean that." Casey was pushing.

"Yes. I mean that." Dan pushed back, harder. "How would you like it if the full story of your divorce -- the *full* story -- was splashed across the New York Post? How would you feel about seeing everyone read about that on the train in the morning?"

"My divorce isn't news."

"And neither is this."

Casey threw up his hands. "Okay. It's not news. Mark Smithbauer is not a news item today."

"Thank you." Dan pushed back his chair, came to his feet and left the room, feeling Casey's eyes burning through his back every step of the way.

The gauntlet wasn't over.

Dana caught up with Dan at the craft service table. "Walk with me, Danny?"

"Okay." He'd expected this. He loaded half an onion bagel with cream cheese, lox and red sweet onions, grabbed a napkin and followed her into her office. It was always good to have a prop of some kind within reach when talking with Dana.

Dana sat down on the couch. "What's the story? You can tell me."

"I know." Dan took a bite, chewed, swallowed. "The guy is assistant manager of a health club. He lives alone. He pays his taxes, doesn't gamble, doesn't even drink any more. He's tired of questions, and he doesn't want to be in the limelight. All he wants from the media is to be left alone."

"Uh-huh." Dana leaned against the back of the couch, her long legs crossed at the ankles. "You like him, don't you?"

"Yeah." Another bite of lox and bagel. "He's a good friend."

"So are you, Dan. So are you." Dana sighed. "Okay. Unless he does something that puts him back into the news, I hereby decree that Mark Smithbauer is not a story on Sports Night. Good enough?"

"Good enough. Thanks."

"But you'll have to deal with Casey on it."

"I can deal."

"Yes, you can." Dana smiled. "Thanks."

Dan didn't try to misunderstand her. "No problem."  
***

But this season, while Casey was waiting out his self-imposed three months before asking Dana out, he was impossible to deal with. Dan didn't even try. It took strong concentration, and even stronger coffee, for him to not listen to Casey's not-so-occasional remarks, but Dan had honed his concentration to a perfect edge over the years, and he sliced through the rhetoric aimed at him from the other side of the room as if he were a samurai splitting a hair in two on his katana.

Or as if he were dodging the goalie to flick a chunk of black rubber into the net in the fourth quarter, sliding away on the ice afterward as if he had wings.

He could do that. He could be that guy who let Casey go on, and ignore him. It helped, of course, that Casey's pursuit of Dana was so hampered by his scruples and fears and sheer nerves that Dan was starting to think the whole idea of the two of them dating was some aberration from a bad dream. The only way those two would get together would be if someone accidentally Superglued them together without their knowledge.

What helped most, of course, was Mark.

They didn't see each other every night, or every other night. They weren't on a schedule. It would just happen that Dan would run into him on the way home some nights, walking in Manhattan, or that Mark would look out of his office when Dan walked by after a workout and smile.

It wasn't planned. It just happened, and life tasted sweet.

It didn't take long for Mark to persuade Dan to buy a pair of skates and come out on the ice with him. At first Dan just concentrated on lengthening his stride, smoothing out the corners as he swung around them, leaning in just enough to keep balance, while Mark's legs stroked powerfully next to him, pacing him. Then Mark started to teach Dan a few things, a few different ways to move on the ice.

"Hockey looks like a power game, and in some ways it is, but not in footwork," Mark told him. "It's got as much to do with dancing as it does with weightlifting."

"Show me what you mean." Dan leaned against the board, panting a little after ten fast laps. He'd definitely lost some muscle in Texas, there was no way around it.

"Okay. Suppose you're cutting through the other team and you need to get to the center for a pass." Mark reached into the penalty box and pulled out a handful of torn-up jerseys that the players used to wipe off their skates. He dropped them on the ice in various places. "There's the left wing I have to pass, and he's coming toward me, and there's the defense. And the goalie." He went back, picked up a beat-up stick, and started around the edge.

All at once, Dan wasn't watching a tall, hard-muscled guy with long legs glide over the ice, but a tough, working-class brawler with a stick in his hand, heading straight for him. He held still, held his breath, watching the swing of the stick in those capable hands.

"Watch my feet. Don't watch the stick. That's what I want you to watch when I'm playing against you, but watch the feet." Mark ducked his shoulder as he slipped past the rags, and did something with the edges of his blades that changed the angle he skated at so that he made a flickering little zigzag at full speed. "See that?"

"Yeah. Do that again."

"Okay." Mark flashed him a grin, and Dan leaned on the boards and watched Mark demolish invisible opponents. "You want to try it?"

"Me?"

Mark waved a hand as if nonexistent crowds were lined up to watch a new star. "You. Come on, Dan. You're good enough."

Nobody could resist that. Mark found another stick for him, and the two of them maneuvered around each other on the ice, running plays, feeling the chill breath of the ice in the moving air on their faces and hands.

It felt wonderful.

By the time they were laughing, dropping the sticks and rags back in the penalty box, it felt like they'd been skating together all their lives. When Harvey, Mark's friend, came out to lock up the place, he didn't start the Zamboni as he had all the other times they'd been there.

Dan turned an inquiring look toward him before he remembered. End of the season. Tomorrow the ice would be melted and the floor changed for the Garden's next seasonal event.

Losing the ice sucked.

Mark finished changing into his street shoes first. He leaned his elbows on his thighs and dropped his head, stretching his shoulder muscles. "It's all right, Dan. I lost the ice a long time ago."

"It still sucks." Dan slipped his foot out of the skate and slung a rubber guard on the blade. "I loved doing this, man."

"Yeah." Mark nodded. He waited until Dan was ready to go, before he said, "Would you like to meet a friend of mine? He's coming for a couple of days next week."

Dan blinked. "Is this like meeting the family? I don't know that I'm ready for that."

"Oh, Ben's closer than family. He was my goalie when I was thirteen."

Ah. The old friend who had persuaded Mark to turn himself in. And they were still friends. It spoke well for both of them. Dan nodded. "I'd like that. If you want, I mean. If it doesn't work out, no problem."

"No problem, either way. Ben's ... different. You'll like him."

"He's not in the game?" They were on the street now, cutting across Eighth Avenue toward the subway.

"He's a Mountie. Lives in Chicago, now, at the Consulate, and works with the cops there doing cop stuff. Or Mountie stuff, eh?" Mark scratched his ear. "Actually, I think he's doing some kind of official business, but it's probably nothing that's going to make the papers. Official courier or something. He does that kind of thing."

"Is he going to want to come over to the station if he meets me?"

Mark shrugged. "Maybe. Probably not. He doesn't get awed by things like that. Now, if you were covering the Canadian National Curling Championships, he'd want to be there, but probably not for the usual stuff." He dropped a token in the box and pushed through the turnstile.

"Okay. Well, if he does want to, I can arrange it."

"Thanks." Mark's smile started sweet but rapidly segued to hot and private. "Good thing it's not a long ride to your place."

"Good thing there's a train at this hour. I left my energy in my other legs."

They had a whole car to themselves, and sat together inside its harsh light. Mark's hand rested on his thigh, next to Dan's leg, and when the car rocked on the rails and they brushed each other he smiled.

"Mark."

"What?"

"Your friend Ben ... knows?"

"Probably. We haven't discussed it. He doesn't care, Dan. It'll be okay."

"Didn't want to blow your cover, Mr. Bond."

Mark snorted. "Right. If I know Ben, he'll hang out with me when I'm available, and walk around the island when I'm not, probably about ten miles a day or more, and just notice things. He'll talk with everyone he meets, and learn all their life stories. He'll hold doors for people getting into taxis, find lost pets, and have a good time doing it." He shrugged. "It's not something I could do, but then I'm not him."

"Probably a good thing." Dan grinned. "What I'm thinking about right now has nothing to do with a *Canadian* Mountie. Okay, it has nothing to do with a member of any country's police force. How's that?"

Mark threw back his head and laughed. "God, Dan, you're so much fun. Okay, what I'm thinking about has nothing to do with organized team sports."

"With or without sticks?"

"Your option."

"Hmm. Could be interesting. How about gloves?"

"Gloves could be involved, depending on your definition."

"Leather gloves?"

"Kinky. I like it."  
***

Dana had been as good as her word. She'd called Jeremy into the office and said something to him, Dan didn't know what, but it had made Jeremy a little quieter about former professional athletes for a while. The last thing Dan needed was Jeremy on a quest for truth. This wasn't the Sword of Orion; the casualties from Mark's shipwreck career change were still walking around and could be hurt again.

Casey was another matter entirely. After three months, he'd finally gotten up the nerve to ask Dana out, and had been smacked full in the face by the wet fish of her so-called 'dating plan.' It didn't take genius for Dan to expect that the backlash from this would fall on him, though he'd hoped for better.

"When did you stop thinking of sports as news, Dan?" Casey was pacing in the center of the room, back and forth from the window to the door. The games he was waiting for were still being played; he was stuck for material and frustrated and Dan knew it.

Dan had been expecting this one. "I haven't."

"No? It sure sounds like you have."

"Casey, when there's news, I'll cover it. I'll be right there for it on the front lines, wherever those lines are. This isn't news. It wasn't news last month or the month before. Drop it."

"I'm not your dog, Danny. Quit telling me to drop it as if I were."

"Then for God's sake quit chewing on this like an old bone, Casey." He swung away from his desk and walked toward Casey. "Mark isn't Shane McArnold. He wasn't rude on camera. He's not someone who came here to get a contract with the Yankees. He didn't take illegal steroids. He's not news." His voice went lower with intensity. "Mark came here to get his life back on track. I'd think you could cut the man a little slack."

"Why should I? My life's not on track, not with Dana's idiotic dating plan, and Sam Donovan deconstructing my presentation."

"So, because Casey McCall is having trouble in his life, he's got to spread it around so everyone is miserable?"

They were in each other's faces when Kim knocked hesitantly on the door and said, "Fifteen minutes, guys." When they left the room, they walked in single file and didn't look at or speak to each other on the way to the show, during the commercials or afterward.

Natalie watched them not talking to each other, and said nothing. Dan could feel the weight of the words she didn't say all the way down the elevator, but he shrugged them off by the time he hit the first floor and pushed through the glass doors onto the street.  
***

"Hey."

"Hey, Mark. What's up?"

They'd exchanged phone numbers early on, but seldom called each other.

"Ben's here. You up for a walk?"

Dan glanced at the threatening sky, then back at the pile of unread newspapers on his table. Who said homework stopped after college? "Sure. Where?"

"Good question." Mark's voice grew distant for a moment, and Dan could hear lower tones in the background. "How about we meet you in front of FAO Schwartz in half an hour and head through the park?"

"See you then."

Dan wore a leather jacket he'd had waterproofed against sudden downpours, picked up a travel umbrella and walked over to Fifth Avenue. He stopped to buy a bag of hot roasted chestnuts from a pushcart vendor and let them warm his hands as he hiked past Henri Bendel. The fresh chestnuts, already split a little, were easy to peel and tasted almost like bonfire-roasted corn. When he reached FAO Schwartz, he saw Mark talking with a dark-haired man almost as tall as he was. As he approached, they turned toward him, smiling and looking alike in some indefinable way.

"Ben, this is my friend Dan. Dan, this is Constable Benton Fraser of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

Ben Fraser shook hands as if he'd have been pleased to fly all the way from the farthest reaches of Canada just to meet Mark's friend. He wasn't wearing the official uniform, but a pair of jeans and a sweater under yet another leather jacket, like Dan's and Mark's. "I saw your show last night. Very interesting. Do you enjoy the work?"

"Most of the time," Dan said. "Where's your horse? Should we borrow one from a park carriage to make you feel at home?"

"Oh, that's unnecessary, but thank you for thinking of it. Actually, I don't have a horse." Ben grinned, relaxed, and Mark shrugged and rolled his eyes. "I have a wolf, and he's in Chicago with my partner."

"A wolf?"

"Half, actually, but he won't admit to anything else."

"You have a wolf in Chicago. You know, that's appropriate when I think of it."

"How so?" They crossed Fifth Avenue and walked toward the park entrance. "Is there some sort of relationship between wolves and Chicago of which I should be aware?"

"The Steppenwolf Theatre Company is there, for one thing."

Ben cocked his head to one side. "Hmm. A theatre company dedicated to performing the works of Hermann Hesse. I shall have to look them up when I return."

"Ben, I don't think they restrict themselves to one author," Mark said. "I think they do experimental theatre."

"Still, it would be very interesting. I'm not sure if I should tell Diefenbaker about it or not. He's likely to get a swelled head over it, thinking that there's a theater for wolves." Ben caught Dan's eye, and Dan realized just how dry Ben's sense of humor was. "He might well become even more insufferable than he is now."

"I can see your point. Who's taking care of him since you're here?"

Ben scratched his ear. "Well, actually, most of the 27th District of the Chicago Police Department. He has many friends there, and he's an unstoppable mooch. If he weren't so good at crime prevention and consoling distressed citizens, I'm sure he wouldn't be tolerated."

"So he works with you."

"You could say that. He certainly doesn't work *for* me. He takes orders very poorly, but then he's deaf so he assumes that if he can't see my lips moving I didn't say anything."

"You work with a lipreading deaf wolf, in Chicago."

Ben nodded. "And with a detective from the 27th District, Ray Vecchio."

"Ben, you haven't changed a bit, not in twenty years." Mark shook his head, grinning. "You know, when we were growing up, the most amazing stories seemed to happen to this guy. You'd swear he was raised by wolves or something, instead of librarians."

"Well, both, actually," Ben said diffidently, "if you count the sled dogs. They're part wolf. I couldn't help it that my grandparents were librarians." He noticed that Dan was confused. "My mother died when I was very young, and my father was a Mountie, so I was sent to live with his parents, who had worked all their lives as librarians and traveled the world. I spent a great deal of time in the library, reading everything I could get my hands on, a bad habit that has stuck with me ever since."

"And now you're a Mountie, too." Dan nodded. He could see how much this friendly, capable man might enjoy working with people. He could also see just how stunning Ben would be in the red serge dress uniform; Ben was already garnering sidelong glances from more than half of the people they passed, both men and women -- far more glances than he and Mark ever received when they were walking together. "You've lived in wide open spaces for a long time, haven't you?"

"Well, not recently. I've been in Chicago for a few years. But before that, all my life. Why do you ask?"

"It's the way you walk."

Mark's mouth quirked. "Is this a patented Dan Rydell observation?"

"Absolutely. Look at the body language."

"I'm not sure --" Ben frowned slightly. "Which body language?" He seemed to be trying to watch all three of them at once.

They came to an open, grassy area in the park. "Look at the way most of these people are walking, then notice how the two of you walk." Dan stepped back off the path as a small group of exercise walkers maneuvered past them. "Well, ignoring that crowd. Look at the others."

Mark glanced around. "I'm not sure." He shrugged. "Get me off the ice and it all gets harder to read."

Ben's eyes sparkled. "Let me guess: we move our arms more."

"Partly," Dan admitted. "But it's more than that. You walk as if you can assume there's going to be a lot of space for you to move around in, and other people give you that space. It's not a threatening thing, it's a boundaries thing. You're not scaring them, but you're making it obvious that you want more room, and you get it."

"Fascinating. You're an extremely astute observer. Had you ever thought about becoming a policeman?"

Dan shook his head. "Not since I saw my first baseball game when I was seven. I wanted to play shortstop. After that it was all downhill."

"Hardly," Mark snorted. "Would you still rather be playing than reporting?"

"Well, no."

"Thought so." Mark grinned at Ben, and Dan, watching them, noticed again how much alike they seemed.

They wandered through the park, then up the west side toward what Dan called the Cathedral of St. John the Unfinished, which Ben had said he wanted to see because of an article he'd read about a famous sculptor whose work was displayed there. Afterward, they went to lunch at a nearby caf‚, and Ben asked Dan intelligent questions about his work as a sportscaster, and even seemed interested in the replies.

When Mark excused himself and headed toward the restroom, at the end of the meal, Ben leaned closer to Dan across the table and said, "I think you have a good effect on him. He looks much happier than he did when I saw him a year ago."

Dan didn't know what to say but "Thank you." He shifted in his chair. "You don't mind? You two are pretty close."

Ben's lips curved in a slow smile and he shook his head, once. "We were the best of friends, and then we grew apart. It's enough for me that Mark and I can talk again, and that he's happy. He was unhappy for a long time."

Dan nodded. "I think I know what you mean. My co-anchor, Casey McCall, broke up with his wife a little over a year ago after a lot of bad years, and he's still getting back on his feet in some ways." He looked at the lines in Ben's face, the track record of the man's life carved into the evidence of smiles and kindness, and added, "Would you like a tour of the studio? If you have time, this trip?"

"That's very generous of you. I'd like that." Ben paused. "I don't suppose Mark should come, should he?"

Dan shook his head. "Not if he wants to stay below the radar."

Ben nodded sadly. "I wish it were otherwise. I think he'd enjoy talking with people who understand where he's been."

"I think so, too, but I've already had to head off more than one person there from going after him for an interview."

"Your co-anchor?"

"For one."

Ben nodded slowly. "You're a good friend to my friend. I couldn't be more pleased."  
***

When Natalie burst into Dan's office on Monday, after the 2 p.m. meeting, he wasn't a bit surprised.

"Dan -- there's a -- a -- "

"A what? An invasion by the Powers That Be? A leak in the water pipes? Miss Plum in the pantry with a candlestick?"

"No, you idiot. There's a Mountie out front asking for you."

"Oh, send him on in."

"You're doing a story in Canada? Why wasn't I told?"

"Because I'm not going to Canada for a story. He's a friend of a friend, visiting New York, and I told him I'd show him around and introduce him if he had time to stop in."

"What's a Mountie doing in New York, anyway?" Casey lounged in the doorway, munching on a ham and cheese sandwich.

"He's a liaison officer at the Canadian Consulate in Chicago."

"Well, that brings him to Chicago. How about the last thousand miles or so?" Natalie demanded.

"You know, you could just bring him in and ask him yourself." Dan leaned back in his chair, smiling.

"And that I shall do," Natalie said, turning on her heel and dashing out.

"Who's the friend?" Casey asked.

"The friend?"

"Of whom the Mountie is a friend, who introduced you."

"Oh. Just one of my list of friends that I go to Broadway shows with."

"The list I didn't want to be on, as I recall."

"That's the one."

"Ah." Casey licked his fingers, where a trace of mustard had leaked out of the sandwich. "And where is this nameless person?"

"He had to work. Hi, Ben. Glad you could make it." Dan got up to shake hands with Ben Fraser, who, resplendent in his red uniform, had followed Natalie back to the office.

"It's good to see you again, Dan. This must be your colleague, Casey McCall?" Ben reached out to shake hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I've admired your work for some time. Your show puts forth an admirable effort to cover the broad variety of sports, instead of limiting itself to the few most popular events usually shown on American television, and I must tell you it's most appreciated."

"We're always willing to broaden our horizons here at Sports Night," Casey said, apparently surprised at the compliment. "Were you thinking of any sports in particular that we might want to add to our coverage?"

"Not really, though I've always thought the Great Northern Snow-snake Competition would make a worthy subject for literary celebration. Actually, I was complimenting you on your coverage of curling, which, while an international sport, receives very little comment in the media."

"Snow-snake? They have snakes up in the far North?" Natalie blinked.

"Not exactly," Ben said, and launched into an explanation that forced Dan to work to keep a straight face. It was a wonderful explanation, combining First Nations history, the rules of the game, and some advanced criticism of specific techniques for improving scoring, but he knew from the twinkle in Ben's eye that it had to be, at least in part, another of his terribly earnest, straight-faced jokes.

"Let me show you around a bit," Dan said, detaching a starry-eyed Natalie from Ben's side with a little effort. "I don't know whether you've spent much time backstage in studios or theatres, but I can assure you this is nothing like what you'd find at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company."

"That's good to know," Ben assured him. "I certainly wouldn't want to confuse them. Actually, I have been on a sound stage before, and in a recording studio." Casey cocked an eyebrow at him, and Ben added, almost apologetically, "I sang backup with Tracy Jenkins very briefly, when she was in Chicago on her last tour."

"You sing too?" Natalie whispered.

"Very poorly," Ben assured her with a smile. "I simply filled in for one of her backup singers, who was temporarily unavailable."

Jeremy leaned around the corner. "Natalie? Isaac is looking for you. Oh, hello."

Casey provided an introduction and Ben shook hands with Jeremy. Dan leaned against the wall, watching Jeremy's reaction to the man who had, to all appearances, swept Natalie off her feet without any effort. It was amazing. Jeremy went from polite inquiry to active interest within thirty seconds, as soon as Ben said, "I remember your name from somewhere. Oh, yes, the story on the Sword of Orion. Fascinating."

"You think so?" The stars in Jeremy's eyes were almost as bright as the ones in Natalie's.

"Oh, yes. I've been interested in sailing ships most of my life. And, again, this story points out the breadth of your coverage. How many other sports shows would take the time to give serious thought and analysis to a sailing accident like that? Fine coverage, very fine."

Jeremy was beaming as if he'd been given a Pulitzer as he dragged Natalie away toward Isaac's office.

"Snow-snakes?" Dan asked under his breath, as he and Ben walked toward the studio floor.

"Well, I had to say something." Ben flushed. "And I do think your show has excellent coverage."

"Hey, spread the word. It can't hurt."

"Trouble?" Ben's eyebrows lifted slightly. He glanced around. "I'd guess money problems at a higher level, since your facilities appear excellent and your equipment sound."

"Right the first time. Not something we need to worry about yet, but ..."

"Understood." Ben paused. "Mark doesn't know, does he?"

Dan shook his head slowly. "There's nothing he could do, and he'd just worry."

"I won't tell him."

"Thank you."  
***

"So, he charmed them all, didn't he?" Mark stretched out next to Dan in bed, toying with an obstinate clump of Dan's hair that insisted on acting like a cowlick.

"Absolutely. He had everyone eating out of his hand, without even trying. I wish the corporate brass had decided to visit; he could only have done us good."

"That's Ben for you. Put him anywhere, and he'll make it better or die trying -- and he usually doesn't even have to try that hard." Mark's voice dropped. "I hope he's happy in Chicago."

"You think he might not be?" The idea that Ben, perhaps the kindest man Dan had ever met besides Isaac, might be unhappy felt deeply disturbing.

Mark rolled over on his back, one arm behind his head, the other stretched out so Dan could rest on his shoulder. "He's not much for cities. Well, neither am I, but I spent a long time on the road and that's not the same thing. Ben goes some place, he has to live there and get used to it."

Dan let it sit a moment before saying, "Are you happy?"

Mark closed his eyes. "With you, yes. With New York ... mostly." He shrugged. "I still feel like an exile, half the time, but that's normal for Canadians down here."

"Anything I can do to make it better?"

"You're doing enough as it is." Mark opened his eyes and turned his head to face Dan. "I think it's my turn."

"Only if you want. We don't have to do anything."

"Oh, I want, all right." He slung an arm around Dan's shoulders and pulled him in slowly for a long, deep kiss that didn't really stop, in one way or another, for more than an hour.  
***

Spring rolled into summer, and summer steamed its way toward autumn.

Dana and Casey, who never managed to date, finally and officially broke up. Natalie's temper grew sharper and sharper toward Jeremy, who was taking his parents' acrimonious divorce badly and was worrying too much about its effect on his younger sister.

And, as if those things weren't enough to rock the boat, Sam Donovan, Isaac's hired gun who was supposed to improve the show's ratings, blew back to the Far East without saying goodye after driving everyone crazy for three months. He did, however, raise the show's ratings by three percentage points in most markets and five in others, so the crew considered the overall annoyance worth the success.

Dan watched Mark try to acclimate to the hot moistness of summer in New York. He took to keeping Mark's favorite flavors of ice cream and sorbet on hand all the time, as well as every iced food he could come up with, and tried to shepherd him into air-conditioned buildings as much as possible.

"We do have summer up north, you know," Mark told him in mid-June. "Right now it's absolutely hot up in the Territory."

"What constitutes 'hot' in a place that gets to minus sixty in the winter?" Dan countered. "Have some more strawberry-kiwi sorbet."

"Oh, about 25 or 28 degrees; that's the mid 80s here, for you non-Celsius people."

"That's not bad," Dan admitted.

"Of course, the advantage of New York is that it only has mosquitos."

"This is an advantage? We had that encephalitis outbreak last year."

Mark waved that away with his spoon. "Only mosquitos, and they're small. Up there, right now, it's pretty much over, but in June we'd be covered in big mosquitos, and blackflies, and all sorts of flying things. You have to wear mosquito netting and special jackets just to go outdoors up there right now." Mark moved his fingers a good distance apart. "Really big mosquitos."

"How big are the blackflies?"

"Tiny, but there's a lot of them."

"Yecch."

"Yeah. So this isn't that bad, you see. And it's got other advantages. No moose."

"No moose is an advantage? I thought you liked moose."

"They taste great." Mark's grin went wider. "But they're no fun to come up against unexpectedly when you're out for a walk, especially the cows and calves. Get one of those mothers mad and she'll back you into the nearest stand of diamond willow and kick you to death."

"I'll remember that," Dan promised. "You point out the diamond willow, and I'll stay way on the other side of the street from it."

Mark laughed and flipped a spoonful of pink and green sorbet onto Dan's bare chest. Dan rubbed it off with his fingers and licked his fingers.

"You missed a spot," Mark said, his voice softer, as he leaned forward to kiss away the solitary drop remaining.  
***

Somewhere toward the middle of August, everything seemed to be sorting itself out in Dan's life.

Casey had taken two weeks off to go camping with Charlie in early July, which meant that he spent the next two weeks waving photos of the fish Charlie had caught under the nose of anyone he could catch. Everyone at Sports Night was good about putting up with this. As Dan overheard Kim telling Elliot, she'd rather look at a fish than get hit with one. Kim had endured more than her share of Casey obstinacy to put up with before the vacation; she was entitled.

Dana had gone to another Broadway show, "Annie Get Your Gun," and hummed snatches of its songs under her breath over the microphone. Jeremy and Natalie had made up their differences, for the moment, and were working amicably on either side of Dana at the controls. Isaac was walking with a cane, with very little trouble, and his smile made Dan feel good every time he saw it.

And Mark was being considered for manager of the health club. The club's previous manager was taking a job at a resort in Georgia, and the owner wanted someone who knew his way around the club and had the personality to bring in more business.

"I don't know if I can do it," Mark said, as they walked through the park late one night. "I don't want to go back to being the guy in the spotlight."

"There are hundreds of health clubs and spas here. Being the manager of one of them doesn't automatically put you in the spotlight unless you're Charles Atlas," Dan countered.

"I might as well be." Mark tipped his head back so he could see the stars, the few that showed up despite Manhattan's streetlights. "But it's a good job. I can do it. It would pay a lot more than I get now, and that might be worth putting up with a lot. There's always the paperwork."

"Not one of your favorite things."

"I like it better than being in the public eye again."

"I can see that."

"How long do you have to think about it?"

"Two weeks. Ernie's being generous, because so many people are out of town that the work load's way down." Mark glanced across at Dan. "I was thinking of going home for a few days. You want to come with me, see the not-so-frozen North?"

"You'll keep me from being eaten alive by mosquitos?"

"They'll have to get in line," Mark murmured.

"I'll see. I haven't taken my vacation yet; I'll check with Dana."  
***

"I'm sorry, Dan, but no. I can't spare you next week." Dana barely looked up from the stack of paperwork on her desk.

"Why?" Dan paced in front of the desk. "You've got plenty of people to cover for me. It's one week. Casey took two and you didn't bat an eyelash."

She sent him a glance, over the top of her glasses, that rapidly approached a glare. "Just believe me when I say that I need both of you here next week, without fail."

Dan stopped in his tracks and turned to stare at her. "There's a quaver in your voice. What's going on?"

"There's no quaver in my voice." Dana shuffled paperwork as if it were trying to escape.

"Yes, there was, just for a moment." Dan dropped into the chair across from her. "What's happening? Is J.J. getting on you again?"

"Shut the door, Danny."

He did, and came back to sit down across from her again. "It's that bad, is it?"

Dana nodded, her eyes dangerously wet. "We're ... they're ... it's ..."

"Olympic coverage?"

"Wraparound," she said, with the loathing usually reserved for the sight of dog shit on her two- hundred-fifty-dollar Italian silk pumps.

Dan winced. "Cutbacks?" he asked hesitantly. "How bad?"

"I don't know yet. Nobody knows." The corner of Dana's mouth trembled. "If you go, you might not be able to come back." She forced the trembling to still. "Casey was lucky; he got his vacation before the suits upstairs took a look at the quarterly report. If he wanted to go next week, I'd have to tell him no. I can't take vacation right now. Isaac can't take vacation."

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long will it be this bad?"

"I don't know." Dana fussed with a pencil. "I can give you some afternoons off, some half-days, but I can't go further than that." She threw the pencil across the room. "Do you know how much I hate having to do this? You deserve a vacation, you really do."

"I know," Dan said soothingly, "and I know it was short notice. I just thought, for once, that being second banana might not matter."

"It's not that, Dan. You know it's not that."

Dan felt his smile twist, just a little. "I just felt like I had to say it for a change, instead of thinking it." He started for the door and had his hand on the knob when she spoke.

"Wednesday. Can you leave on Wednesday and just take the half week? I really need you here Monday and Tuesday, because the board of directors is coming." Her voice was low, strained.

Dan wanted to feel worse than he did about putting her in a bad situation. "You sure?"

She nodded slowly. "Go. Make arrangements. And don't come in at all on Wednesday. Be somewhere else, show up the following Monday. You need your life, Dan."

"I love you, Dana," he said quietly.

"No, you don't. You just like me for my hair and my shoes." This time her smile was steadier.

"That too." He closed the door behind himself and went to call Mark.  
***

"That's the Mackenzie River down there. No, there." Mark pointed out the airplane window.

"Wow." Dan couldn't help feeling overwhelmed. They were flying over a vast, rocky green countryside, crossing a river that had cut its own deep-walled canyon. Everything was farther apart here. The plane turned to follow the track of the gorge, or perhaps the trail of a road that seemed to parallel it for a while. "Is it all like this?"

"The mountains are bigger in the south, and the trees die away around the Arctic Circle, but yes. It looks a lot like this for a long distance." Mark glanced at him. "You okay?"

Dan nodded, swallowing hard. "It's a lot different from New York."

Mark grinned. "You could say that." He looked relaxed, comfortable, as if the enormous spaces and bright sunlight were something to be taken casually.

Sunlight. It felt to Dan as if they were flying into the sun. "It's pretty bright up here."

"The sun doesn't really go down up here right now."

"At all?"

"Well, it's a little like twilight for an hour or so and then it's sunrise again."

"I've heard about that before but I never thought I'd see it." Dan felt the back of his shoulders itching, where his jacket had folded against the seat. He rubbed his back against the seat to see if he could get it to stop.

"Lean forward a little," Mark said, and reached over casually to scratch his back and straighten his jacket.

"Thanks."

"Some kinds of airplane seats do that, some don't. I used to know, the minute I got on a plane, if I'd be able to relax just from the shape of the seat backs and whatever material they had on them." Mark shrugged. "I still check them out."

"Smart man." Dan leaned toward the window, watching the amazing light over the landscape and listening to Mark's commentary. As they were landing, Dan noticed something about the houses that Mark said were built on wooden pilings to raise them above the permafrost. Some of the wooden pilings had been painted to match the houses, in pastel colors that probably looked good when there was enough snow to cover the pilings. One of them was yellow; the moment Dan saw it, he murmured, "Baba Yaga."

"What?"

"It's a Russian fairytale. Baba Yaga lives in a forest in a house that has giant chicken legs, so when she wants to go somewhere she tells the house to move and it walks away."

"I like that. Problem here is, you let your house walk south for the winter and it might not come back."  
***

They stayed with Mark's sister and her husband. Mark's father had died of a heart attack a few years earlier, before Mark had left professional hockey; after his death, and Mark's move to New York, his mother had moved to Toronto to be closer to him while still staying in Canada. Mark's sister, Beck, ran the construction company their father had started, and her husband taught math at the high school. Both were avid sports fans, and had watched Sports Night on satellite tv, which amazed Dan.

"But only in the winter," Beck told him. "There's too much to do during the summer to watch television."

"I can see that," he agreed.

"What, surprised that we like the show? You don't have to live in the south to get the jokes." Beck's husband, Jim, said. "So, you want to see something of the area. Done any canoeing?"

"A little, not the kind of whitewater stuff I saw in the river when we flew in -- but I'm willing to learn," Dan said, as he ordered his stomach not to flutter at the mere thought of whitewater.

"You've only got a couple of days, but that's enough time to learn a little." Jim's voice was comforting. It occurred to Dan that Jim was probably a very good math teacher, the kind of teacher who wouldn't let a student fail trigonometry or calculus, and that teaching ability usually translated across disciplines.

"I'll help," Mark told him. "It's not that bad."

And it wasn't. They drove upriver until they found a calmer stretch of water, where Dan could remember his long-neglected Boy Scout canoeing course and Mark could sit behind him in the canoe and stabilize it whenever he floundered. Fortunately, his shoulders were stronger than they had been when he was 15, and didn't ache as much. Later, they sat around watching the sun laze along the horizon and drinking glacier-melt water, which tasted cleaner and sharper than any water Dan had ever encountered before, when Jim said, "There's a couple of jobs opening up soon. Did Beck tell you?"

Mark shook his head. "Not again, Jim. You know I can't play."

"I know." Jim stared at a bird that Dan thought looked like every other gull he'd ever seen. "It's not the coaching job. They got Araniuk for that one."

"He's a good man, good player. A little light on mid-game strategy, but that's something you have to learn for yourself anyway." Mark's eyes flicked from the canoe to Jim's face. "What is it? Personal coach for the McEnery kid? I turned that one down years back, when they came looking."

Dan tightened his grip on the bottle, feeling his hand shake. The water in the bottle moved in small waves. He took a drink, slowly, letting the sensation of cool wetness in the back of his throat try to release the tension he could start to feel in his back. "You'd be good as a personal coach."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I gave up my mob connections for Lent."

Dan nodded, understanding.

"Nothing like that, and it's not work for the oil companies, either. I know what you think of that."

Mark said nothing but his eyes flickered again, Dan noticed. He leaned very slightly toward Mark, ostensibly to look at a flower in the grass, and Mark relaxed a little, which made him feel better.

"You've still got your wilderness guide certification, don't you?" Jim said.

Mark shot him a startled look. "I haven't done it since high school, back when I used to go camping with Ben. We got them at the same time," he explained to Dan. "It was a big thing with Ben's dad and mine, that we needed to learn how to live out here without the conveniences, and there was this program the Mounties ran, to get you connected with someone who could teach you."

"Sounds like a really good idea up here." Dan squinted. Yes, the sun was moving sideways, slowly. The light felt soft on his skin, energizing, as if it were pouring vitamins into him.

"Patsy Milliken is running it now. She's looking for people to teach, who know how to take someone out on a trip and teach them to take care of themselves." Jim's voice was soft. "It pays well, even for here. She's picky; she wants the best people she can get. You're in good shape; you know what to do even if you're a little out of practice."

"I'll think about it," Mark said, in the tone that he used when Dan knew the topic had just been crumpled and tossed into the trash can.

Later, when they were back at the house, with the blackout drapes pulled low, Mark reeled Dan into the spare bedroom, dropped to his knees, unzipped Dan's jeans, pushed them and the boxers underneath down to his thighs, and gave Dan the longest, sweetest blow job he'd ever had. It made Dan's blood tingle, and when he stopped being lightheaded and looked down again he saw Mark's face against his naked belly, unmoving, just breathing there as if it were the center of the universe.

He threaded his fingers through Mark's hair, which was longer than it had been when he played hockey, and lightly traced the receding hairline. Mark would still have hair for a long time, it would just start higher up on his head. He cradled Mark's head in his hands, and Mark sighed.

"If that's what northern sunshine does for you..."

"It's one of the things."

"Hey." Dan rapped gently on Mark's skull as if it were a door. "It does things for me too. Want to see?"

"Oh, yeah." Mark's voice sounded all right, and his face looked all right when they were both lying on the double bed together, and it was as if the two small damp places on Dan's belly had never existed. Dan took the opportunity to prove he was a better wrestler by pinning Mark to the bed and impaling himself on Mark's strong cock, sliding up and down happily, feeling Mark's solidity and energy throughout his body and getting both of them off. Mark's breathless laugh after that was the happiest thing Dan had heard in a long time.

In the next few days Dan was amazed how much sightseeing there was to do in and around Inuvik. They toured every place Mark had ever been, and every place that he thought Dan might find interesting. They flew to Aklavik, the older settlement, and Mark introduced Dan to his friends who still lived there, and Dan saw a little of what traditional life in the North might have been like in centuries past. They went canoeing again, and hiked, and talked, and played, and made love outdoors whenever they had privacy or enough distance from other people.

And they never, once, mentioned New York.  
***

"You're here: good. Meet you in Isaac's office for a strategy session." Dana buzzed past Dan in the hall, stopped, turned and said, "You look good. Nice tan. Did you have a good time in Alaska?"

"I wasn't in Alaska, I was in Inuvik." Dan paused. "Strategy session? You usually don't invite us to that."

"I know. I don't want you to worry."

"Worry about what?"

"Exactly. Isaac's office, ten minutes."

Dan shook his head and kept going. Casey was sitting in their office, frowning at something on the monitor. "Oh, come on. Not again!"

"What is it?"

"Replay from last night's Orioles game against the Red Sox. Look at that!" Casey threw his hand toward the monitor. "How many fouls did Cal hit in a row? Fourteen?"

"He's not going to be the Iron Man much longer if he keeps injuring his sore shoulder," Dan agreed. "He's looking pretty tired."

"You can say that again." Casey switched off the monitor. "Hey, you look good. How was your vacation?"

"Not long enough."

"I hear that." He looked down at his desk and back up at Dan. "I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Powers beyond our control and all that." Dan shrugged. "We're supposed to meet Dana in Isaac's office about now for a strategy session."

"Strategy session? She never calls us in." Casey stood and together they wove their way past the desks toward the executive offices at the front, stopping at the craft service table on the way by to get coffee.

When they got there, the door was shut and Natalie was guarding it. "I'm sorry, no meeting," she said.

"I don't understand," Casey said, frowning.

"Isaac threw me out. No, that's not quite right. Isaac asked me to leave and told Dana to stay, and then he told me to tell anyone else that showed up that he would take care of the strategy, thank you, no offense to any of us but it was his job and he wasn't dead yet."

"Oh, shit." Dan said.

"Precisely. So I think we should all go back to doing what we do and let them sort it out." Natalie smiled at Dan. "Very nice tan. You're going to look so good on camera."

Casey cleared his throat.

"Oh, did you get your hair cut, Casey? It looks ... interesting." Natalie gave Casey a totally different smile than the one she'd given Dan, and strolled off down the hall.

Casey shook his head, amused. "Can't win any time, can I?"

"Not with Natalie, at least."

They made jokes all the way down the hall about comparative hairstyles, until they reached the office, when Casey became solemn. He shut the door once they were inside, and perched on the edge of his desk. "I owe you an apology."

Dan looked up from behind his own desk, where he was starting to sort through the mail that had been piling up in the In box. "What?"

"I was a real idiot there, for a while, about what I thought was your attitude toward news. I'm really sorry."

Attitude toward news.

Dan dropped the mail and went to look out the window. "You're not talking about news, are you."

"No."

"Who told you?" Dan watched Casey in the reflection on the glass. Casey ducked his head and brought it up again, slowly.

"Nobody. I - I saw you at the airport on Wednesday with him."

Dan nodded. He didn't want to turn around, didn't want to think about what was waiting for him in the wings, just offstage. "Casey, could we not talk about this now or for a while?"

"Sure."

"Okay." He gave Casey the best smile he could manage, so Casey would understand that his apology had been accepted, and went back to his desk.  
***

After the show, Dan let himself out of the building and started to walk, almost as if by remote control, toward the park. There was no point in going by Mark's place; he was still going to be in Inuvik for two more days, if not more. No, he'd have to come back if he was going to stay there, if only to formally leave his job and pack up his apartment, since he wasn't a highly paid sports star with an entourage to do his work for him any more.

He'd have to come back, one way or the other.

On a whim, Dan went past Madison Square Garden and imagined it filled with giant iguanas. Well, at least they'd be no worse than international soccer fans. He stopped for a take-out iced latte at the all-night coffee place in Times Square and went across to Fifth Avenue so he could cruise past the remaining bookstores and Rockefeller Center on his way north.

North.

He was doing the same thing as Mark, in his own way, heading north to a quiet, green place, only Mark's quiet green place turned white for six months or more at a time. In spite of the warmth of August, he shivered involuntarily.

When he went past FAO Schwartz, he had to glance at the giant toy soldier in his red uniform twice, just to make sure it wasn't Ben. Had Ben suggested this job opening to Mark's sister? Probably not; Ben was in Chicago with his wolf and his partner and the Steppenwolf Theatre Company and the Chicago Police Department. He was far too busy to concern himself with job openings in remote sections of the Northwest Territory.

By the time Dan reached the park, he couldn't go in. No reason, or maybe it was just that it felt too closed in with all those trees. He still felt like walking, so he went as far as the Met before he realized how tired he was and flagged down a cab to take him home.  
***

"We're up half a percentage point in the last three days," Jeremy said.

"Really?" Natalie raised her eyebrows, and her hand, and she and Dana high-fived the half- percentage point. "Good for us."

"Yes!" Dana nodded emphatically. "Just tell me -- what did we do that was different?"

"I don't know." Jeremy considered, but shook his head.

"Dan's suntan?" Natalie chirped hopefully.

Dana leaned forward. "Dan?"

"Yes?" Dan said, adjusting his earpiece from behind the anchor desk. "What is it, Dana?"

"Would you be willing to consider visiting a tanning salon periodically if the company pays for it?"

"Will the company pay for my skin cancer treatments in future years?"

"If the company's still here in future years, I'll make sure it's added into your health care coverage as long as you don't sue us for my asking you to do it in the first place."

"I'll think about it."

"Good enough."  
***

The phone rang on Dan's desk, and Casey picked it up. "Just a minute -- here he is." He handed Dan the phone as he walked into the office.

"Dan? You get a dinner break, don't you?"

"Yes," he said, shooting a glance out the door to make sure Natalie was nowhere in sight.

"Want to meet me at Chiquita's on Sixth for dinner?" Mark sounded good, but Dan could tell just from listening that he was anxious behind it all, and it wrung Dan's heart.

"Sure. Early okay? Five?"

"See you there. Thanks." Mark hung up.

Casey looked up from his own desk, where he'd been studiously ignoring the call. "You all right?"

"I'm fine." Dan could see Casey starting to open his mouth again. "Don't. I'm fine."

"Okay." Casey waited a moment, and said, "You know, if you want to talk, Danny, I'm here."

"I know. Maybe later." Dan sat down at his computer. "Are you still seeing Pixley?"

"No, I'm sorry to say. My time with Pixley is a thing of the past."

"That's too bad."

"Why do you think so?"

"Just the sound of the names." He let his voice caress the words, sweetly. "Casey, Pixley, Casey, Pixley, Ca--"

Casey threw an eraser at him, across the room, and things started to feel normal again.

Mark was already at the table at Chiquita's when Dan arrived. "Casey's handling the six-o-clock rundown for me, if I'm late getting back."

Mark nodded. "It's good to see you again."

Dan sat down, and as they ordered he watched Mark. No question, the man's energy level was higher and his eyes nearly threw sparks. Dan felt his stomach sink. It was a good thing he'd ordered enchiladas with a milder sauce than usual.

"Dan, please. It's not what you think."

"Then tell me what it is, please."

"Okay." Mark leaned forward in his chair and stretched his hand across the table toward Dan's hand. They never quite touched, but Dan could feel the heat from those fingers near his. "It's a six-month job. I spend six months of the year in Inuvik and Yellowknife and all over the Territory, teaching kids how to survive away from the cities, leading wilderness hikes, getting out in the bush. I talked to Enrique at the health club. He's willing to bring me on as an exercise coach in the winters, a sort of associate manager during the busy times. I still get to spend time here with you, but I get to be in Inuvik as well. It's a win-win situation, don't you see?"

Win-win.

His stomach flip-flopped.

"When do you have to leave?"

"In two weeks. I'm going to sublet the apartment to some students; they work at the club part- time, and I know them, so it's no hassle. They're good kids." Mark studied his face. "Do you want to come with me to Inuvik? You can, you know. Nobody will think anything of it."

Dan shook his head slowly. "What would I do there? I can't really leave this job and come back to it later; it won't be there. Hell, it might not be there next week."

"Whoa. Wait a minute." Mark looked startled. "How long has this been going on? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Apparently a while. The station owners aren't pleased with our ratings. There are all kinds of rumors." Dan glanced aside, then back. "I didn't want that to be part of what we have."

Mark sent him a grave-eyed smile, understanding. "You think they'll close down the show?"

"I don't know what they'll do. It's like walking on one of those glaciers you showed me. You never know whether the next step is going to kill you or not, and it's hard to see where you're going."

"Shit. Dan, I'm sorry." Mark rubbed his hand on the back of his neck. "What a time for me to go and fuck around with a new job. Look, if it'd help any I can tell them I'll be a couple of weeks late. I can do a lot of the preliminary work on the course down here, before I arrive."

"Thanks, but I don't think there's anything you can do that would help. Well, it would help me, but it wouldn't help the job at all. But I appreciate it, believe me." Dan's voice softened. "I'll take as much of your time as I can have, and gladly. We still have a lot of Broadway shows to see before you go."

"Yes, we do, and there'll be even more when I come back."

"If the show or the network fold, I don't know where I'll be."

"Don't worry about it. You wouldn't believe how many frequent flyer miles I have." Mark's voice went low and serious. "I'm not going to let you go, not unless you ask me to."

"I'm not asking," Dan said, feeling his heart crack, "but what am I supposed to do for six months of the year? I don't refrigerate well."

"I don't know." Mark shook his head slowly. "I don't have any answers at all right now, just directions."  
***

The last two weeks seemed to fly past when Dan looked at the calendar in his office, though the time he and Mark spent together felt as rich as they could possibly make it. Casey had managed, somehow, to persuade Natalie to take him shopping and had actually listened to her advice; as a result, he looked far more fashionable off-camera than Dan ever remembered seeing him look. Everyone was worried about what would happen to the company, and whether the station would survive, but since nobody knew anything that would pass for factual information, they kept producing sports shows and tried not to fret.

"Listen," Dana said at the end of the 2 p.m. meeting, "we're going to have an exclusive for tonight, so I want you to put aside ten minutes for me."

"Ten minutes?" Natalie's jaw dropped. Elliott's pencil fell out of his hand.

"Ten minutes. We'll put it in the thirties."

"You mind telling us what this is about?" Jeremy asked. "You didn't even give MJ ten minutes."

"MJ wanted five minutes for a cologne ad. This is different. Casey, Dan, I'd like to see you for a few minutes. Meeting's over for the rest of you. See you again at six."

Casey waited until the room had emptied before he said, "What's this about, Dana?"

Dana shook her head. "Ask Danny."

"What?" Dan stared from one of them to the other. "Ask me what? Did I call Babe Ruth back from the dead in my latest seance or something?"

Dana blinked. She drew a deep breath, let it out slowly, and said, "I received an interesting phone call this morning, and I apologize if I thought you were involved, Dan, but it was from Mark Smithbauer, offering us an exclusive interview for today if we wanted it, and believe me, we want it."

Dan fell back in his chair, stunned. "I swear to you, I don't know a thing about this."

Casey poured a glass of water and shoved it across the table at Dan, who raised his eyebrows. "You looked dizzy," Casey muttered.

"I feel dizzy. Mark offered to come here for an interview? He hates sports news."

"Dan, I don't pretend to know why he's made this offer, but it's a good one and we're taking it." Dana told him. "We've got very little going on today otherwise. Unless they actually find Jimmy Hoffa during the renovation of Giants Stadium and he offers us an exclusive, I'd suggest that the two of you start working on questions." She paused a moment, watching Dan with an expression that combined tenderness and determination, turned and left.

"I didn't know about it until now, either," Casey said. "Don't look at me like that."

"I'm not looking at you like anything." Dan pushed himself to his feet. "I think I need to make a phone call."

"You want me around?" Casey said hesitantly.

"Not during. Can you go hang with Jeremy for a few minutes?"

"No problem." He patted Dan on the shoulder as he left.

Dan walked into Isaac's office and closed the door. It was the only place he could think of that didn't have glass windows into the rest of the studio. Isaac was at a late lunch following a medical check-up; he wasn't due back until 4 p.m.

Dan dropped into his chair, breathing as if he'd just run a marathon. He reached for the phone and put his hand on the receiver but couldn't pick it up. He couldn't stop feeling as if he'd been pushed into the middle of an avalanche that was about to blast away everything in his life. He closed his eyes and thought about sunshine and canoeing and the smell of the air near the MacKenzie Range, and picked up the phone to make the call. Mark answered immediately.

"It's all right, Dan."

"It's not all right. I don't want you doing this for me." Dan curled around the phone protectively. "Please."

"Dan. Okay, I'm doing it partly for you -- it'll help your ratings, it might keep your job going longer -- but I'm also doing this for me. I've got some things I need to say, and I'd rather say them in front of you than anywhere else."

"You know I can't do this one alone," he whispered. "I need Casey there."

"I know. And the floor's open -- you two can ask me anything you want. I trust you."

"That's incredibly generous, and it's still not right. You don't owe me this, Mark."

Mark's voice, when he spoke, was a little rougher than before. "Yes, I do. Ben taught me this. I owe something to the people who believe in me." He cleared his throat. "And no, Ben didn't put me up to this. He doesn't know it's happening."

Dan sat with his eyes closed, listening to the music of Mark's voice. "Then you'd better call him. He won't appreciate finding out about it afterward."

"I will. God." Mark's breathing sounded as heavy as Dan's. "I can do this. I'm going to do this."

"Okay." Dan bowed to the inevitable. "But if you cancel at the last minute, that's all right."

"I'll be there at six, as I told the woman I talked with, I think her name was Dana."

"Yes. Will I see you after the show?"

"I've got a 10 o'clock flight to catch. Will you have a few minutes after the interview?"

"I'll make a few minutes. I'll invent them. I'll haul them out of the celestial storehouse of time."

"Thanks. Thanks, Dan."

After Dan put the phone down, he went to the window where Isaac always liked to stand to look out over the city. He could see the towers of midtown Manhattan, the crowns of the trees in Central Park like Impressionist brushstrokes against the gray and brick and silver of the city, and in the distance the faint tips of the towers of St. John the Unfinished. If he could see further, up the Hudson River to West Point and to the Adirondacks beyond, he might be able to find the lake that was the source of New York City's good drinking water, clear and cool and fresh, but that was as far as he could go. Beyond that was an undiscovered country he'd only barely touched, and no matter what he wanted he knew it wasn't a place he could live all of his life.  
***

The rest of the day went too quickly. Dan and Casey spent their time formulating and refining questions for the interview. Dan discarded a few questions that he knew Mark wouldn't answer, and Casey acquiesced.

It felt so strange, after all this time, to be able to talk to Casey about Mark. Dan tried to keep his mind on work, which wasn't much help when his work overlapped so strongly with the rest of his life.

"What else can we ask him about? This new Outward Bound-type program? The weather at the North Pole?" Even Casey's humor was gentler today.

"Yes to the program. Ask him about sports in the Northwest Territory."

"The Great Northern Snow-Snake Competition, wasn't it?"

"Ask him what he likes about New York." Dan dared a smile. "He knows the rules, Case. He'll give you something good."

"I'm looking forward to meeting him." Casey put his pen down, carefully. "I'm sorry I didn't get to meet him before. I'm sorry about a lot of things, Danny."

"Shut up, McCall." Dan turned away from the desk, fighting to keep his eyes from overflowing. If his eyes were red on camera, even eyedrops wouldn't help, and the next day they'd get a hundred calls suggesting remedies for conjunctivitis. "I - I think you would have gotten along well."

"Maybe when he's back in town, next time?"

Dan smiled, nodding. "Count on it. But you may have to go see 'The Lion King'."

"It'd be worth it."

Elliott poked his head into the office. "Here's the updates on international soccer."

And they were back to work again, compiling, discussing, comparing sports teams and players, reviewing league statistics, and considering all the ways that humans can play together and have fun on teams in public and be paid for it.

"So, this is where you work," Mark said from the doorway.

Dan looked up from his desk, where he'd been trying to find an antonym for 'spectacular' other than 'dismal.' "Here it is, what there is of it."

"Nice view."

"Thanks." He was on his feet, over standing near Mark, before he could think about it. Office. Glass doors and walls. "This is Casey McCall. Casey, Mark Smithbauer."

"It's good to meet you." Casey stood to shake hands; he and Mark were almost exactly the same height, and they seemed to look each other in the eye for a moment longer than might be expected. "Thank you for being willing to do this."

"No problem," Mark smiled slowly. "I called Ben," he said, turning toward Dan. "Told him to watch tonight's show."

"How's Ben doing?" Dan wished, fleetingly, that the Mountie would walk into the studio in full uniform, telling straight-faced jokes and distracting everyone. Natalie and Jeremy had managed to walk past Dan's office twice in the past three minutes, followed by Elliott, just to get a look at Mark.

But Mark would always be the one that people would look at, whether he was on ice or not. That was just the way it was.

"Ben? Oh, he's having a great time. He told me some longwinded story about this friend of his from home, Quinn, getting kidnapped. Ben's partner jumped a motorcycle through a window to save him."

"Let me guess Ben didn't get cut by any of the glass."

Mark grinned. "He didn't even get rumpled. You know, I was always jealous of that. He and I would get into all kinds of trouble, but he looked so good that nobody could believe he was involved." He turned and noticed the migratory crowd behind him. "You want to give me the tour? We should probably do this."

The next ten minutes amazed Dan even more than the interview itself. Everyone wanted to meet Mark. And Mark, who usually swept an invisible cloak of 'do not disturb me' around himself in public, was openly friendly and gracious to them all, without a trace of discomfort. He joked with Jeremy, flirted mildly with Natalie, and gave Kim and Dana smiles that sent them starry- eyed into the control room. He complimented Isaac on the show's coverage of sports, and said he hoped the show would be on the air for a long time.

"We'd like to think that will happen," Isaac said, leaning on his cane but more relaxed than he'd looked in months. His eyes flicked from Mark to Dan and back, and he smiled a little more widely. "Go ahead in, get comfortable. I'm looking forward very much to hearing what you have to say."

The broadcast desk had been wheeled away; in its place were comfortable chairs and a small table with a pitcher of water and three glasses. Mark settled in the right-hand chair, his long legs stretched out comfortably. Casey, with a glance at Dan, sat in the middle, and Dan on the left.

"We're here today with Mark Smithbauer, former NHL hockey star, to hear about what he's been doing since he left the ice," Casey started smoothly. Dan winced at the phrase 'left the ice' and hoped the camera had been tight enough in on Casey to miss his face.

"Actually, I haven't exactly left the ice -- I'm just moving on to different ice," Mark said calmly. "I'm going to be heading the Wilderness Guide program in Inuvik, Northwest Territory, and we've got plenty of ice up there."

"Wilderness Guide. That sounds interesting. Would you tell us a bit more about it?" Dan asked.

And they were off and running, as if they'd rehearsed it for hours. Mark talked about teaching canoeing, kayaking, mountain climbing, dogsledding, and survival techniques. He made it sound so interesting and inviting that Dan knew half the audience would be trying to find Inuvik on a map as they watched, and figuring out the local area code so they could call for reservations.

"I gather that you don't look at this as leaving sports," Casey said.

"Not at all. I think of it as going back to the basis of sports, which is physical activity for the sake of survival. Think about it." Mark leaned forward earnestly. "What are whitewater canoeing and kayaking but modern versions of something that's been done for centuries? Modern climbers use the same skills that hunters and wilderness travelers have always used in order to make their way through the mountains. And skating, itself, started as a fast way to get from here to there on a frozen river." His eyes sparkled under the studio lights. "I'm just passing on the knowledge of how to do these things."

Dan asked, "Although the North is your home, you've been in New York for a few years now, I understand. Was it hard to adjust to living in the Big Apple, after years on the road with the team?"

"It was a change, yes, but not a bad one. I like New York. For my money, it gets a bum rap from a lot of people," Mark said, watching Casey's eyebrows rise. "It has world-class entertainment and restaurants, but it also has some of the nicest, kindest, friendliest people I've ever met anywhere. I think more people should know about that. That's what I'm going to miss most, I think." Mark's eyes strayed to Dan only for a moment; they didn't have to be there any longer than that.

"If that was an audition for a job with the Tourism Board, I think you got the job," Casey quipped. "But you're going to be back here in a few months, aren't you?"

"Yes, I expect to be teaching fitness classes at the Village Health Club again during the winter," Mark said. "Maybe I can add in a class or two on ice fishing in the East River, if it ever freezes enough."

"If it does, and you manage to catch anything resembling a fish, we'll be right there to cover the story," Dan said. "Thanks for coming in, Mark."

"Yes, thank you," Casey said.

"I wouldn't have missed it. Thanks for having me," Mark said.

"And we're out," Dana said from the control room.

They walked toward the front of the office, with the sounds of "Good interview," in their ears from everyone they saw. Casey shook hands with Mark, excused himself, and headed toward the craft service table. Dana and Isaac made polite noises, and disappeared. Jeremy and Natalie smiled and nodded toward them from the editing room.

Dan couldn't stand it any longer. "In here," he said, as they passed an empty office that didn't have a glass window. It was the room that Sam Donovan had used when he was working to raise their ratings. He shut the door behind them. "You were magnificent. Do you know how good that was? You're going to boost our viewership unbelievably." He paused. "You know you didn't have to do this."

"I know." Mark said. He took a step closer. "I want you to still have a job when I come back, so we can go to more Broadway shows and sit in the good seats."

"And I want you to have a good time, no, a great time up there in Inuvik." Dan gave up and wrapped his arms around Mark, who hugged him back hard. "Don't get eaten by a polar bear."

"I won't." Mark kissed him, fast and hard, then softer, gentler, letting the kiss end gradually. "You come and visit me? I'll let you in the class for free if you promise to do the homework."

"I'll learn anything you want to teach me," Dan whispered. "The only thing I can't learn is to say goodbye."

"Don't say it, then."

Dan kissed Mark once more. He wanted to remember this taste, this flavor of Mark that belonged to nobody else on the planet, but it wasn't supposed to have salt in it. "Have fun. Have a good time out there under the sun."

"I will." Mark took Dan's shoulders in his hands. "You keep on telling good stories the best way, okay? I want to be able to point to you on the tube and say, 'I know this guy, and he does it right.'"

Dan nodded. "It's what I do."

"Yes, it is."

One more hug, and Mark was out the door, striding toward the exit with his game face on, the steady smile that was just subtly different from the one everyone had seen before. Dan watched him go, watched the long back and the longer legs until they turned the corner to the entry foyer and were gone. He gave himself a few minutes to sit and stare at the walls before he went back to his office to stare at his computer screen.

Casey came in and sat down at his desk to type for a few minutes. When he'd finished what he was writing, he said, "You want to go out and get a bite to eat before the crunch?"

"Not really."

"C'mon. You need a break. I'll buy."

"I'm not hungry."

"Not even for Glorious Sandwich's cheesesteak?"

Dan felt his mouth turning up in a smile, a small one. Casey was trying so hard. "Okay. But it's got to have smothered onions."

"It'll have them. I'll even eat some of them so I won't mind your onion breath during the broadcast."

"I could just brush my teeth. We both could."

"Glorious's onions survive Crest; what can I say?"

Dan hated to admit it, but the sandwich was just what he needed, something solid and tasty to keep him going. Casey ordered the club sandwich, but filched enough onions to guarantee onion breath. They split an order of seasoned fries.

"Good thing we don't do this every night; Monica would have to let out our suits."

"Don't kid yourself; if we started to get bigger Dana would have us on treadmills every minute we weren't on camera," Casey said. "Dan?"

"Yes?"

Casey was carefully not looking at Dan. "I'm not saying this has to happen, but if you just happen to be looking for someone to go to see a show with, and -- "

"You want to be on the list."

"Yeah. If that's okay with you."

Dan nodded slowly. "You know, you might just have to see ''The Lion King'.'"

"Can I bring Charlie?"

"Sure. But nobody else. My list is guys-only."

"That's not a problem."

"I'm glad."

And they walked two blocks south, back to the studio.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposted by request. This is old, old. I don't even recall when I wrote it. It's one of those stories that got into my head and wouldn't go away.


End file.
